Throw Them Up and Let Them Sing

Looking through the footage last night I think I have got pretty much everything I need so far.  I’m collecting my own images of Schwitters related locations and land around the Merzbarn.  What I don’t have is any signposts of where I am.  Both literally and symbolically I need a few signs and signifiers that say Schwitters, Merzbarn, Ambleside and Cumbria.  I may not use them but its best to do it now while I am actually here.

Its my last day at the Merzbarn today.  So that’s what I will do. 

Spent the morning skiving at the Langdale Country Club Spa (sauna, swimming pool, Jacuzzi).  So much for saving money.  But there is a limit to how much a girl can rough it.

Anyone who wants to find the Merzbarn – follow the signs from Ambleside to Langdale, then Chapel Stile. It’s a double green gate opposite the Langdale Country Club.  Marked Hotel on this map - bottom left. There is no sign and the gate is locked.  You have to make an appointment to see it or come on open days. www.merzbarn.net

Went public on the blog yesterday and amazed how many people wrote back and said nice things.  It’s the music connection.  I have a reputation for making interesting films with experimental musicians and lots of the fans of the music are also Schwitters fans. 

I’m reading the new book on Schwitters by Roger Cardinal and Gwendolen Webster, who’s biography gave me the idea to make this project.  It’s the best book so far in my opinion and also beautiful to look at.  (No I didn’t get a free copy - the publishers never answered my request -  so I had to cough up £30!).  Its interesting that they say that Schwitters may have left Germany when the Nazi’s came to power, not because of his “degenerate artist” status as many others were tolerated, but because he knew that, having epilepsy, he was in danger from a regime bent on eradicating disabled people.  This book addresses the disability issue much more than the biography actually, including how it informed his work and his life choices.  Interesting.

 Went back to the Merzbarn last night on the way home from the luxury country club where I post my blog (I sit with half a lager all evening).  The light was great and I recorded some more sound.  There were lots of baby rabbits when I arrived but they disappear very quickly.  Twee or what?

 Played with the time lapse setting on my camera and filmed clouds going by fast as the sun sets.  Definitely worried about the twee landscape issue.  Must do something a bit messier.  I’m basically gathering my own Merz material like Schwitters – that I will work on in the editing for months.  I will grade colour, crop the image, layer, change the speed and juxtapose the footage creating something very different to the original footage.  Its exactly the same process as when I was painting.  It really needs a much more powerful laptop than the clapped out 5 year old one I have now though.  I often have to leave stuff to cook (render) overnight.

I’m feeling a bit claustrophobic today.  There doesn’t seem to be much real life in this valley.  It’s a bit like a Lake District theme park.  There must be some locals. surely all these cute little cottages can’t all be holiday lets?  Its really quiet.  But nobody has spoken to me since I arrived.  I used to live just outside Carlisle and in my experience Cumbrians never leave you alone; the are the friendliest people I have ever met.  But this is tourist land.

Think I will take a little trip to Ambleside – a strange little town with a very multi-racial population who come for the fells and extreme sports.  Its got a little jazz club, an art house cinema, some quite decent eating places and lots and lots of climbing gear shops. I always thought I might live there when I got older.  I still don’t have the energy to get up on the fells (my passion) and may have to leave that until the second trip.

Went to Ambleside and took a photo of Schwitters’ house.  Its just someone’s home apart from the sign outside.  Tried and failed to find the grave in a gorgeous church yard.  Realised I didn’t feel well so went to the Armitt Museum, which has a Schwitters room,  just to have a rest.  But ended up reading tons of stuff in the library which has an extensive Schwitters books, catalogues, press clippings collection.  Met Barbara Crossley who wrote the book “The Triumph of Kurt Schwitters and she gave me a signed copy.  (Its full of local gossip apparently). Then had a good chat with Deborah Walsh, the curator, who says she has never found the grave and think someone has stolen the gravestone.  His body was returned to Hanover anyway.  And I also watched William Feavor’s documentary about Schwitters where he meets Wantee, Schwitters’ partner in the English years.  She was much posher and more educated than I imagined her to be.

On the way back did some filming of the sun going down on the fells and the weir at the back of the sleeping barn from the other angle.  Think pretty good.

Worked a bit too much last night on editing the images and on the blog (thank-you to the Langdale Country Club down the road for the wi-fi in the bar - very cosy) and woke up at 6.30 feeling truly terrible.  Sore throat, swollen glands, headache, foggy brain.  But it was raining very heavily anyway so decided to stay in bed.  Then suddenly around 9am the sun came out and I saw a woodpecker outside the bedroom window pecking away at a large tree stump.  I dashed to get the camera and managed to film about 3 seconds before it flew away! 

Here’s the tree stump without the woodpecker.

I was using my bigger camera (Canon XM2) which I haven’t used for ages as its heavier, old and not HD.  But its got a much better lens and can do really nice shots when I use progressive mode that enhances surfaces and textures in an abstract rather Schwitters collage type way – something I have used a lot in the past.  I couldn’t quite remember how to use it.  And I was worried that it hadn’t been checked over before I left.  Fortunately I intend to shoot on lots of different cameras (including my mobile phone if that’s all I have at the time).  This is totally in keeping with the collage aspect of Schwitter’s way of working.  He used everything as an art material and improvised with what he had there in front of him.  For a recovering perfectionist this is a really liberating philosophy.  And yes I have forgotten the lead which transfers the footage to my computer – a good thing really as I would be editing all night.

(Perhaps I should say that before I got M.E. I used to be a TV director who made arts programmes.  We had all sorts of technical “specs” we had to comply with.  Though things have become more relaxed nowadays.)

 My energy picked up after I had some breakfast and I had a great morning shooting quite abstract  stuff of the surface of the river outside the sleeping barn. 

I am so lucky staying here.  I can make work outside the door when the fatigue is bad.  And the solitude is great as I can really think.  I can also rest whenever I need to and I have set up the living room for editing and resting.  I’ve brought my radio so have Radio 4 on in the background all the time.  Listening to “Woman’s Hour” while writing this.  Again, massive thanks to the Littoral Trust for letting me stay here.

Filming all this landscape stuff made me think about an email I got from the art critic William Feavor last night.  He was involved with getting the Merzbarn restored and knew Schwitters’ partner Edith Thomas (I also worked with him about 25 years ago, though I doubt he remembers).   A chance comment from him in the email about my film relating to Schwitters liking to pick flowers made me realise I have to be very, very careful not to make something that is pretty and twee.  I consider myself to be a hard-core modernist (which got me into all sorts of arguments when I went to Goldsmith’s to study fine art as a mature student and doggedly stuck to abstract painting.  At that time – about 12 years ago - this was considered to be tantamount to supporting Hitler by some of the younger tutors and I was accused of being a reactionary.)  Of course that’s why I like Schwitters’ work in its use of abstraction (though he is also considered to be a post-modernist as he used found objects and popular culture)  This is also why I like the extremely experimental musicians who like him.  I painted to John Cage and Morton Feldman - exploring the concepts of chance and improvisation - when I was at art school.  The last thing I want to make is a pretty landscape film.  Which of course if why I have just spent the morning filming the light on the river!

 Those years refusing to work with cameras and exploring texture, surface, mark-making, erasure, traces, etc. in paint, wax, marble dust and other materials – totally informs what I am now doing now.  I’m back again working with cameras, because  I can’t stand being in a studio all the time and I love travelling - and I think at the end of the day my favourite medium is actually light.  Of course - I now see that abstract painting is back in fashion.

Went back to the Merzbarn in the afternoon taking all my gear in the car.  It had been raining really heavily during the night and my ancient car was full of water!  Decided to sort it out later as needed to catch the light before it went.  Had great time filming the walls and stones of the Merzbarn - and the holes in the ceiling - in very low light with very slow shutter speeds with the big old camera.  Like an old friend.  The bird was still singing its heart out but a construction crew were also working somewhere in the distance and the dumping truck kept reversing…

Might get up really early and come back to record sound before they start.  Pain.

Went back to the sleeping barn and spent an hour baling the water out of my car with a bowl and a big sponge.  Still feeling pretty rough.  Hope tomorrow I’Il feel better.

Had a good drive up and it didn’t rain too much.  I arrived only 5 minutes late and Celia from the Littoral Trust was waiting for me.  They own the Cylinders Estate and the Merzbarn.  They also have a sleeping barn which is where I will stay this week until the weekend when a group of art students from the Slade School of Art are coming.  I will then move over the hill to the Grasmere Youth Hostel.  I’ll come back this summer when the weather is better and then later in the autumn when the colour is great.

Went to the local pub for a drink and a meal as a treat as its my first night.  Absolutely horrified at the prices and I live in central London.  The food was like the worst school dinner I’ve ever had.  Won’t be going back there again. Complete tourist trap.

I had a good night’s sleep but woke up just exhausted from the drive.  Have to rest today to recover.  But its only just a few metres away, so I went to see the Merzbarn for the first time this morning.  It’s a lovely place, the estate, with the gardens around it and a little art gallery (locked though I don’t think there is anything there at the moment.)  It was raining so I just sat in the Merzbarn and allowed the atmosphere to sink in and listened to the rain.  It was a lovely soft sound, and a bird was really singing his heart out.

I remembered when I first saw the wall from this little barn which has been moved to the Hatton Gallery in Newcastle,  I got really choked and emotional.  It looked like it had seen so much and there was a really worn and battered look to it, even though it has been restored.  But its also funny and clever and witty and complex. I just sat and stared at it for ages with Rob Airey the museum keeper who was watching me to see what reaction I had to his baby.  I think my response passed his approval!  And I have read so much since then about this work. 

So this morning I just sat and thought here I am.  I finally made it to the Merzbarn itself.  I did a bit of filming on the tiny camera (new Panasonic Lumix TZ20 – size of a ciggy packet) mainly quite abstract stuff of the light coming through the  roof.  Will have to come back tomorrow and get some decent sound on a good microphone and you can bet your life that bird will have gone…

Then I went to the shop (Chapel Stile Co-op brilliant) but ended up driving up the Langdale valley and doing a bit more filming in the rain.  Keep seeing Schwitters landscape drawings in the fells which are very monochrome in the mist.

I am having a hard time working out what to take.  I’ve got the car so the tendency is to take the kitchen sink but I know I am bound to forget something crucial.  A lead or a battery charger or something small but crucial.  I’ve done research at the National Art Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum – going through the catalogue raisonnée, the 3 giant volumes that have details of every piece of work known of that Schwitters made.  Then looking at the Ordinance Survey map, I can try and work out where he liked to walk, both in Cumbria and in Norway.  It helps me plan my shoot.

It would seem that a triangle between Elterwater, Grasmere and Rydal is the area he loved the best.  Especially Loughrigg Tarn and little Loughrigg Fell immediately above the Cylinders Estate and the Merzbarn.  I’m going to concentrate on that area.

Well its not really the beginning as I’ve been working on this project for about 6 months now since I fell in love with Kurt Schwitters’  work in the Sprengel Museum in Hanover, Germany, last November.  I make films with a group of experimental musicians called free improvisers, and I was invited to Hanover to show my work at a music festival.  One of the musicians who came with me,  percussionist Roger Turner, had introduced me to Schwitters’ work a couple of years earlier.  I used to live in Cumbria and I knew about Kurt Schwitters coming to the U.K. from Hanover to escape the Nazi’s.  He went to Norway first but ended up living in Ambleside - I had seen some of his work in the museum there - and in Tate Britain.  I thought it was a interesting story but I wasn’t that impressed by his work to be honest.  But the art work I saw in the Sprengel Museum in Hanover the day after the gig, was incredible. Schwitters not only made amazing collages and constructions from everyday things he found around him (his ‘Merz’ materials), but he was also a pioneer of installation and performance art. Here’s a link to more info on Schwitters on the Sprengel Museum Website. 

I also make quite abstract films in the landscape which explore texture, rhythm, sound, chance events, light changes, etc.  Schwitters’ work somehow seemed to be speaking the same language.  You can see some of this work on my website link.

I am delighted that the Hatton Gallery in Newcastle have decided to commission me to make a film, my response as an artist, to Schwitter’s work - exploring the landscapes he visited, and the visual language he used.  This film will be shown as a gallery installation in the room next to the Merzbarn wall (below) opening on June 28th 2012. This wall is the remains of an extraordinary installation Schwitters made in a disused Cumbrian barn in Elterwater, near Ambleside.  Hatton Gallery website  Merzbarn Wall website

I read the biography written by Gwendolin Webster about Schwitters and discovered that he had epilepsy.  I know quite a few people who have it as well.  They seem to have a tendency to being either over cautious and controlled in their lives or extremely devil may care and throw all caution to the wind.  Schwitters seemed to have been both at the same time!  I have M.E./chronic fatigue syndrome, which is hugely erratic - and how much I can and can’t control my life is something that informs my work as an artist.  I wondered if the element of improvisation in Schwitter’s work results from the epilepsy?  Is that why I respond to it so strongly? I will be addressing this question throughout the development of the project and report in this blog. The film will take me to Cumbria and to Norway and, as I won’t have much money, it will be a challenge in its own right for me to make this film.  

Also reading the books about him and the poetry, it was obvious he loved the mountains. So do I. Here’s an extract from a poem he wrote -

Enemy Alien

Standing on a high mountain

I felt free

I danced to the music                                                            

the mountains make together.

Schwitters was also a fan of avant guard music and was a pioneer of sound poetry using abstract vocal sounds in his live performances.  There will be experimental music and improvised sounds in the film, created by some of the free improvisation musicians.  I run a monthly concert in London called Mopomoso with the guitarist John Russell at the Vortex Jazz Club.  This gives me great opportunity to meet brilliant musicians.  I have a Youtube site that is devoted to films I have made at these and other gigs. Helentonic on Youtube.  There will be a concert in Newcastle of Schwitters inspired music when the exhibition opens in June 2012.  More to follow.

I’m going to Cumbria next week to start filming.